


Crossing The Line

by felineranger



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Prison Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:49:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4921966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felineranger/pseuds/felineranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Lord Valery Mimes superb fic 'A Thin Line'</p>
<p>Rimmer and Lister struggle to come to terms with their situation, and deal with it in very different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing The Line

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Thin Line](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244463) by [LordValeryMimes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordValeryMimes/pseuds/LordValeryMimes). 



> Written for the Red Dwarf Fic Remix Fest on Tumblr  
> rdficfest.tumblr.com

After that night there had been weeks of silence. No banter. No small talk. No eye contact. The atmosphere in their small cell was thick with guilt and recrimination. During the day, the rest of the gang acted as a buffer between them, but in the evenings there was no escape. The first time Lister had taken a shower, Rimmer had stared at his silhouette behind the flimsy curtain, wondering if it was possible to recreate what had happened, but change things this time. Wondering if by re-living it they could somehow fix it. Lister had wept noiselessly under the feeble spray, both hoping and dreading that Rimmer would do just that. He wanted it, oh how he wanted it. Warm lips and wet skin and sodden curls and ecstasy, but he knew that with the pleasure would come pain; too much pain for either of them to cope with.

However much he wanted it, he couldn’t use Rimmer that way again. It was too cruel, too selfish. He couldn’t dangle the idea of love in front of a man who’d never known it and probably never would. But what now? They couldn’t go back to how things were. Not now they’d finally broken the fragile spell of normality they’d been under for years; now that they’d said all of those things, done all of those things; now that they knew the taste and feel of each other. He’d opened Pandora’s Box and now they were both in hell. 

Desperate to draw a line under this, maybe even in some kind of masochistic atonement, he had finally gathered the courage to go to Kochanski. On their next canary mission he had reached for her hand and drawn her gently away from the others as they searched the deserted vessel. He had whispered words of love that meant very little to either of them, but worked all the same. They’d found a dark quiet spot beneath a stairwell and furtively made love standing up, not bothering to take the time to fully undress or even lie down. He let her use him the way he’d used Rimmer, knowing when she gasped his name that it wasn’t him she meant. It stung but he embraced the pain of it, knowing it was exactly what he deserved. It might even have made him feel better, if he hadn’t opened his eyes to see Rimmer standing in the shadows, watching them with his eyes black with jealousy. Lister had met his accusing gaze with a mixture of shame and defiance, then pointedly looked away and bent to kiss Kochanski. When he looked again, Rimmer was gone.

Back in their cell that night after lights out, Rimmer’s voice had hissed from below him, “You’re sick, Lister. I hope you know that.” Lister cringed at the venom in his words.

“Get over it,” he whispered back, trying to sound more cavalier than he felt. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Let me do it.”

“You don’t love her.”

“And she doesn’t love me. What does it matter?”

“It’s just a game to you, isn’t it? Are you working your way through us all? Is Cat next? Kryten? What then? You think you can charm your way into Ackerman’s pants, maybe get yourself out of here?”

“This isn’t a game. I don’t want Cat or Kryten, and I sure as smeg don’t want Ackerman.”

“So why are you doing all this?”

“Because I can’t have what I do want,” Lister said bitterly.

“Join the club,” Rimmer snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Lister told him, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. It was wrong, I know that. But I couldn’t take it anymore, man. All the aggro, all the pretence, all the smegging tension. It was driving me crazy.”

“And this is better?”

“No,” Lister confessed, “It’s worse.”

He rolled out of his bunk and dropped to the floor, heading to the sink for a drink of water to clear his head. He heard the mattress crackle as Rimmer got up too. “You’re the one who started this,” he protested indignantly. “You’re the one who stripped off and barged into the shower and made this happen. Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself because it didn’t pan out like you hoped? What exactly did you think was going to happen, Lister? That I’d smile and shrug and say it was totally fine for you to use me as a substitute for your hologram crush?”

Lister bristled, “He wasn’t my crush. We went through a lot together, me and him. You weren’t there, you don’t understand.”

“I don’t care what he was, or what you went through. You had no right to drag me into it.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I dragged you into it,” Lister said sarcastically, irritated now. “I won’t pretend that what I did was okay, but don’t you pretend that you’re completely innocent. Like I said; you wanted me and you’ve always wanted me. There’s no point denying it.”

“If you hadn’t pushed your way in…”

“…Then you’d have never touched me. I know that. But only because you’re a smegging coward.”

“So are you,” Rimmer countered. “You spent all those years with that other me and never had the guts to tell him how you felt. But let’s be brutally honest here, Lister. I may have wanted you, but clearly you wanted me too.”

“That’s different. We had a connection. We had a bond…”

“Call it whatever you like but even without that connection, you still wanted to fuck me.”

Lister reeled. He was getting flustered; angered, upset and aroused. “I just wanted you to admit it,” he protested feebly, “I wanted you to stop bullying me and…”

“…Wrap my lips around your cock. Right?”

Lister gulped, “Something like that, yeah.”

“And now you want to pretend it’s all about the feelings, all about the connection you had with that other me, and you’re running back to Kochanski trying to prove something to yourself, but it’s all a lie, Lister. It’s all a big stupid smegging lie, because you want me just as much as I want you.”

“No…”

“Yes.” 

Rimmer stepped up close and Lister was suddenly very aware of the height difference between them as he was forced to look up in order to keep eye contact. Keeping eye contact was important. To look away now would be tantamount to backing down, and besides, who knew where his traitorous eyes might stray to. They could end up roaming all over that tall toned body and reminding him of exactly what was hidden beneath that ridiculous jumpsuit and that would be bad right now, so so bad…

“I don’t love you!” he blurted out, his heart racing and face burning.

“But you want me. Admit it.” Rimmer’s eyes were wide, his entire body stiffening like a rod, and Lister knew him well enough to recognise the danger signs of a major storm blowing in. The kind where the Captain’s office would end up trashed, or fridges would be wrenched off walls. Rimmer grabbed him with both hands, leaning down into his face, “Say it!” Lister shook him off and backed away, stumbling into the table. At once, Rimmer was bearing down on him, bending him backwards across the table and at the same time pulling him close so that they were pressed together, head to toe. Lister gasped as he felt the firm heat of Rimmer’s erection stab his stomach and blissful pressure against his own cock. Rimmer’s nose was against his, their lips bare millimetres apart. “Tell me you want me!”

What happened next was hazy, like a dream. Heat and lust mixed with anger and tinged with something even darker. Lister was delirious with shame and desire, his cock painfully hard and his cheeks wet with tears. There was a tongue invading his mouth, hands roaming his body, tearing off his jumpsuit to grapple with his naked limbs and he wanted it, wanted it all and more. Somehow he found himself on his knees, sucking on Rimmer’s cock like it was the source of all life, clinging onto his hips, pulling him closer, taking him deeper until he was choking on him, until he could barely breathe, and it still wasn’t enough. He could feel Rimmer’s fingers tight in his hair, could hear his voice panting desperate meaningless words, but those things didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Rimmer was here, in him and part of him, he could taste and smell him, and he didn’t want it to end, wanted as much of him as possible. He wanted to suffocate in him, drown in him. He wanted them to be one and never ever be separated again. When Rimmer came, his juices flooding Lister’s mouth and throat and all his senses, it felt like a blessing.

In the end, Rimmer had to push him off, using the grip on his hair to drag Lister’s mouth off him. Lister gasped in a lungful of air, eyes blinking as if he’d just been woken from a deep sleep. He instinctively raised one hand to wipe his wet mouth and the image of those pink lips swollen and glistening was enough to make Rimmer’s cock twitch even so soon after coming. Lister was still gloriously hard, his immense erection standing tall from his lap as he knelt crumpled on the floor. Rimmer bent down and one gentle push was enough to spill an already exhausted Lister onto his back. Rimmer straddled his legs to hold him down, grasped his cock and began to pump it. “I’m not him, Lister,” he panted as he worked him, “I. Am. Not. Him.” Lister moaned brokenly, but Rimmer didn’t know if it was in response to his words or his actions. Either way, it was only a matter of moments before he was coming, hips jerking helplessly as he thrust into Rimmer’s hand. His eyes were clenched shut but Rimmer saw fresh tears trickling down his cheeks. 

When it was over, when he’d milked him of every last drop of pearly come, he hauled himself unsteadily to his feet and staggered back to topple into his bunk, leaving Lister naked on the floor. After a little while, he heard Lister’s voice in the darkness, still tight and choked with tears. 

“It doesn’t change anything, you know.”

Rimmer gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to punch the wall with all his might. “I never expected it to,” he retorted bitterly.


End file.
